


The Storm-Keeper

by Meatball42



Category: Hamlet - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, I'm certainly not opposed, Missing Scene, Slash Goggles, if you like - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-01-31 11:18:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21445360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42
Summary: Hamlet closes and latches his door. He falls back against it as though he cannot hold his body up alone and stares at me. His eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them, than I ever imagined they could be.
Relationships: Hamlet & Horatio
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2019





	The Storm-Keeper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [remrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/remrose/gifts).

I am waiting when Hamlet enters his rooms. Seeing me, his eyes light up, and he spins around to face the guards who accompanied him.

“This place is my own, while I remain at Elsinore,” he announces to them. “A man’s home is his fiefdom, wherein the word of no king ranks higher. I will take to this prison without followers.”

Having thusly dismissed his former friends, Hamlet closes and latches his door. He falls back against it as though he cannot hold his body up alone and stares at me. His eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them, than I ever imagined they could be.

At Wittenburg, I oft imagined being alone with the lord Hamlet in his rooms, to discuss our similar studies and interests. Yet, I am the humble son of a minor lord, and I knew myself blessed to be counted among Hamlet’s lesser friends. I gambled my standing for reception at Elsinore when the timbre of his dearest fellows began to shift toward denigration of Hamlet’s mourning, in a way that followed the lines of Claudius’s speeches. My reward for this loyalty has been to become the prince’s trusted confidant, alone amongst his companions, exactly as I had dreamed.

And yet, in all my wishes of friendship and love, I never imagined the fire that now burns in Hamlet’s eyes when he sees me, the light of passion tinged sanguine and golem dark.

“I had the chance, Horatio!” he says slowly. “The thief was on his knees before me, yet I suspended my blow.” He prowls to the vanity, glares at the small mirror built into its swinging door. “I saved it, it bore his wretched name like some sword of legend, destined for a single sweeping strike. And that stab, that most holy of blows, I wasted upon a harmless insect, one who nipped for traces of blood but left no more than a mark on a man’s flesh.”

I don’t know what to say to this, and so, as ever, I wait upon him. Hamlet doesn’t need a reply. He pushes away from the vanity and careens across the room, clutching his hair in distress.

“Can the angels forgive such a blow? That but for a trick of the ear, a twitch in a battle-ready arm, would have fallen upon one much more deserving? All my fury lodged in that strike as though in the tip of an arrow, whose target was a mere finger-slip away, and now all propulsion is waned by his mistaken use.”

He looks at me beseechingly. Those eyes that stared down honored professors at Wittenburg, that meet the gaze of an unholy king with defiance, now beg me for mercies and condolences. His mercurial behavior sows in me a deep concern, but how can a man guide a hurricane to peace?

“Is this the hand of the Almighty on my hand, drawing it back from the grip of my bodkin?” He strides toward me, grips my shoulders, examines my face as though the truth were hidden there. “Does He pull me from the edge of those lands in which my dear father walks, unmatched in step and spirit? Or is this a mere waifish frailty of my own creation, as the smith’s hand, feeling the numbness of a good whack upon the iron, doth fear the next healthy blow against all reason?”

Then, his heavy pants quiet unnaturally.

“You would tell me, Horatio, would you not?” he asks me. “Were I a coward?”

This, I can answer as my honor and my love for him demand. “Had I sensed a single drop of thin blood in thine actions, I would have advised you fittingly, my lord.”

Hamlet clasps my neck, draws me into a tight grip. I hold him as well, and startle at his shivering. “My lord, how heavily weigh these acts upon thy spirit?” I murmur.

He does not hear. “Dear Horatio, my good friend,” he mumbles, releasing me and walking wearily to his sideboard, where he pours a measure of mead. “How alone I would be were it not for your counsel.”

I can say nothing, but I watch him lean his body against a pillar of his bed and sip slowly. His eyes close, his throat moves like a hairless creature, pale and unaware.

Outside this room, the people Hamlet has loved all his life are waiting to oust him from the home they have reshaped for their own purposes. Inside this room stands a loyal servant who knows not how to quietly deliver the truth: that his beloved master’s assumed disposition has sucked away and overtaken his better nature.

I am afraid my sweet prince is alone after all.


End file.
